


Things More Important Than Fear

by Aenorno



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 00:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18981448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenorno/pseuds/Aenorno
Summary: Sacrifice in the songs was better than real sacrifice. The Vestige must make a choice.





	Things More Important Than Fear

Nevia preferred poetic sacrifice. The bards said that the deed sang in your bones after it was finished- a noble, heroic pain.

She decided to never wish heroics like that on anyone.

No song in her honor was worth deciding which of her friends should die. No swell of pride filled her chest as she stared at them, their armor spattered with Daedric blood and their eyes hardened like flint. Each of them stood before Death’s open arms fearlessly.

Awaiting her decision.

She glared at Abnur Tharn, fervently wishing for Akatosh to grant her the power to kill him without jeopardizing their mission. A more reasonable part of her knew this mess wasn’t the sorcerer’s fault.

After all, Abnur Tharn didn’t imprison Lyris or Varen. Abnur Tharn didn’t initiate the Soulburst. Abnur Tharn didn’t slit her throat and steal her soul.

But he and his daughter stood by and let Mannimarco run his Worm Cult from the seat of the Empire. Thousands died, now mindlessly slaving away in Coldharbour. He may have helped the Companions eventually, but his excuses for his inaction in the meantime rang hollow in Nevia’s ears.  
Loyalty to the Empire indeed.

And now he stood there, hands clasped behind his back, coolly informing her that she must make her decision. Quickly, if she pleased.

She willed herself to snap at him, her heart throwing itself against her ribs as her anger and grief thrummed through her veins.

Lyris spoke first, voice ringing out loud and clear in the heavy air. Perhaps it was fitting. Lyris was the first she’d met. Lyris had saved her. “My father once told me that the most important thing a person could know is what they die for. I know that now.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Nevia snapped, her gut twisting at the thought. “You’re so young. You have so much to live for.”

The warrior exchanged a knowing look with Sai Sahan, brushing the sweatsoaked hair back from her eyes. “I’m tired, Nevia. I feel as though I’ve lived a dozen lifetimes. If my death has meaning, then so will my life.”

“Lyris-“ The Nord stepped forward to grasp her friend’s shoulders, cutting her off with a warm smile.

“Nevia. It would be my great honor if you chose me.”

“And mine as well.” Sai Sahan bowed his head. “I swore to protect my emperor. I failed him. I cannot ask him to die in my place. Nor can I ask Lyris.” He paused, taking a great breath and swallowing the Nord’s name as if it hurt him to speak it. “It would be a fine death, my friend.”

Nevia wasn’t known for a lack of words. Unspoken confessions sat heavily on her tongue, things she never got the chance to tell them, experiences she never got to share with them. Now she never would. Now she could only stare.

Good heroes were selfless. What did that make her? She would watch the world burn if it were to protect them and bring back all she’d lost.

She clenched her jaw, struggling vainly to hold back the bile stinging her throat.

_You idiotic, honorable fools!_ She wanted to scream in their faces. _There is no honor in this. No one will thank you. No one will know your name! This is no song. We are not legends that will pass into poets. We will pass into dust._

She mechanically turned to the sorcerer, a last plea. The roiling tide of emotion within her escaped in a mere rasp.

“Is there no other way?”

Tharn’s brow furrowed, as if her grief was a mild annoyance. “We’ve already discussed this, Vestige. You need an infusion of divine power to even-“

Faster than the sorcerer could blink, Nevia’s hands were wrapped around his throat, squeezing at his windpipe. The black blood on her gloves stained the soft skin of his throat, and the sight filled her with grim satisfaction.

Tharn usually wasn’t capable of expressing emotion aside from contempt or disgust, but a flash of cold fury animated his grey eyes as the Vestige yanked him to her. “It should’ve been you, n’wah,” Nevia snarled in his ear. I could snap his throat so easily. As easily as one crushes an insect.

“Vestige. Please.” The old man’s blindness didn’t stop his cloudy gaze from piercing her soul. Where anyone else might’ve been broken by what they faced, Varen Aquilarios’s voice was strong and steady.

Nevia savagely shoved Tharn away, fists curled as she turned to face them. She must be strong like Varen. It was they who would pay this price, not her. She must not send them to their deaths with tears. This much she owed them.

_I must be who they need me to be. There are things more important than fear._

Nevia blinked furiously, squarely meeting Varen’s milky gaze. “Varen.”

The man she’d met as the Prophet and had come to know as Emperor made no attempts at smiles or embraces. He’d dragged her out of Oblivion, and now she might have to repay that with his life.

“We will never completely eradicate evil, Nevia Sadri. We must keep fighting it. You worry about making the choice, but there are no safe choices. It is my fault that all of this happened. It would be fitting to choose me.” Varen paused, giving a wry smile. “A fine death indeed.”

Nevia’s heart pounded, and her chest ached with the force of it. _I must not send them to their deaths with tears. We must not die with tears._

“Varen,” she repeated. A gut instinct, just like every other decision she made.

Numbly, everyone moved into position. The goodbyes seemed too curt, cruelly cut short by necessity. It seemed as though it’d been a lifetime since they’d met each other, although just a mere year had passed. Now Akatosh or whatever was out there dictated that this must be the end.

Nevia hated goodbyes. She refused to let the words leave her mouth. ”Thank you,” she heard herself saying instead. Varen cocked his head.

“Me? You saved us all, Vestige.”

She barely caught the sob before it left her mouth.

Light enveloped him, so bright it burned Nevia’s eyes to stare but she refused to look away. Abnur Tharn shouted the words to the incantation, all lost to the blood roaring in Nevia’s ears.

She hated Akatosh. Her blood boiled with the loss of her friend, the unfairness of it all. As Varen collapsed in a motionless heap on the ground, the Dragon God imbued her with godly power. His death brought her strength, and she hated it with every fibre of her being. Where her muscles ached from battling endless hordes of Daedra, she now felt as though she could kill a god with her bare hands. Her bruises and open wounds stitched, now a distant memory on her skin, and she was clad in the armor of the Divines- a glowing angel of death.

Lyris and Sai Sahan flinched as they looked upon her, for she was beautiful and terrible in equal measure. Her rubied eyes glowed with unholy fury, and her twin swords burned with dragonfire.

Even Abnur Tharn backed a step away, his biting wit lost to him at the sight of Nevia. He gripped his staff tighter, eyeing her smoldering swords and eyes.

“No one will thank you for what you did. I will be the memory of what passed here today.”

It was what Varen’s blood bought her. It was what Tanval’s blood, Garyn’s blood, all the blood she lost bought her. Molag Bal’s death and a fleeting memory of a sacrifice.

She searched for pride, but did not find it.


End file.
